Highway Technologies closed all their national operations on Friday, with no forward notice to their regional offices. They are the biggest traffic control company in the nation. This is effecting events throughout the country. All complaints should be directed to them!
Glad WOL was able to come up with an alternative course at the last minute. It's going to be even harder then the original route.

From WOL...
IMMEDIATE CHANGES TO MORGUL BISMARK ROAD RACE: Dear Athletes we regret to inform you that tomorrow's Morgul Bismark has been modified due to extreme circumstances. At 10:00am on Friday morning Highway Technologies closed all their national operations, with no fore notice to their regional offices. Highway Technologies is responsible for all the road closures, traffic barricades, cones creating separate lanes on highway 93, etc
The closure of this business has severely impacted our event, Colfax Marathon, America Ninja Warrior, and among numerous others as they're the largest traffic control company in the state. Since hearing the news our staff has been working with the Town of Superior, Town of Louisville, Boulder County Sheriffs dept, Colorado State Patrol, and our traffic control supervisor on viable options. With only a 36hr time-frame the massive amount of physical traffic control assets needed to run an operational morgul that adheres to all permits, safety codes, and state requirements was simply not attainable. At 4:00pm during today's Summit Criterium we had to make the decision to either cancel or come up with some creative solutions. In our book cancelling was simply not an option. We designed a new course that met the requirements of all agencies involved and at 6:00pm tonight were able to recruit an additional 250 cones from a fellow productions company to make Plan B viable.
WHAT'S PLAN "B": Plan B is we're racing!!!! The new course will feature the "WALL" with the same number of laps on a new 12 mile loop. This new loop is FULLY closed to traffic. Please see the course map.
YOUR FIRST QUESTION: We're riding down the "WALL" too? Yes! Yellow line rule will be in effect with zero margin for error. You cross the center line and your pulled from the race, no questions asked. Riding up the "WALL" we'll be placing a full cone line that's set 2ft to the right from the middle yellow lane. While this narrows the lane for uphill traffic it provides a necessary safety buffer for athletes traveling downhill.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ARRIVE IN THE MORNING: Please know that our staff feels your frustrations with these last minute changes. I know many of you will be upset and disappointed at the news, while others will be excited for a new challenge and one heck of a story to tell over beers. When you arrive please do not overwhelm race staff with course questions as each wave will have a thorough race briefing prior to your start. Please spend the time getting checked in (if you're racing the Omnium), registered (if not signed up yet), picking-up numbers (if you haven't yet picked them up), getting your timing chip (THAT'S EVERYONE - NO CHIP NO RESULT), and warming up. I know there will be many questions and e-mails following this release. We'll do our best to answer every question that comes in promptly, but please know our staff will be on course tonight preparing for the new changes.
COMMUNICATION: Please call your friends that are racing and let them know the recent news in case they won't be checking e-mail tonight.
We thank you for your patience and understanding during this situation. Come tomorrow you can still expect a great event, a challenging course, and some great stories to share with your race buddies.

Lance Panigutti, Tony Panigutti, Brian Hludzinski and the whole Without Limits Team

Missing Wheelset: From the Superior Morgul Road Race on Sunday. Shimano Dura-Ace WH-7850 TL tubeless with Hutchinson Fusion tubeless tires. Wheels each had a pink ribbon tied to them - for easy identification. My initials - JA - were also written in black sharpie on the hubs.
I gave the wheelset to the support vehicle for my category - a red volkswagen. After the race, the wheels were missing.
If you accidentally picked up my wheelset after the race, please contact me at 303-803-3852 - or race director Lance Panigutti at (303) 408-1195 or Lance@WithoutLimits.com. No questions asked - I just would to get my wheels back. Thanks.
- Jon Alegranti

I thought the revised course was fine and the race was well run. I would have like to see a little more staggering of the groups. In the 35+ race we were neutralized several times (fully stopped once) to allow categories riding shorter races through, at one point we were neutralized while our eventual race winner was up the road working with a group from another category.

Maybe it's simply not possible to start the groups 5 minutes apart, but the entanglements we saw yesterday certainly degrades the race experience.

The 3s passed the 35+ 3s (why are they starting in front of the 3s?) and the 35+ Open race. When the race-winning move was made, the 3s were all tangled up with some other field and there was no way an organized chase was going to happen (it's the 3s, so the likelihood was slim already, but still).

If BRAC can't lift the restrictions forcing Cup Races from having all these races, maybe we can combine the fields and score them separately. For example, race the 35+ 3s with the 3s, and score it separate.

BTW, yesterday was cake (in terms of congestion on the course) compared to cyclocross. Too many categories is a mess in every cross race.

I believe the City Park crit (circuit?) will combine the 3s and 35+ 3s exactly how you describe. They will be scored separately even.

It was definitely a mess between categories. In the end even the motos had to give up trying to sort out who was who in the 3s categories. I would definitely direct frustration at BRAC not the organizer, as BRAC stipulates categories and exerts pressure on promoters to run them all.

I still had a great time out there and kudos to the promoters for finding a course so we could all race given the circumstances. It certainly kicked my butt.

Agreed we had problems with the mixing of the fields, but with the orginal course, that does not happen as much. Plus we would not have been racing through the turn around when another race was starting. I think yesterdays course is harder than the orginal. The fully closed course was nice. This course with a few tweeks would be great. Getting neutralized is a price we pay for race tactics that play out on the road. If we were going all out all the time.. there would be fewer crossing of the groups. If a race winner was up the road with a different group, then in is the motos responsibility to separate them, if the winner continue to use a different group, then he should be DQ'd.

You can't put all your marbles in one bag (technology) and expect it to be working 100% of the time. There have been races on the front range were the camera has failed. Judges with with hand written record of the race did pretty good getting results at those races. CSU Oval crit collegiate A had that exact problem.

Props to WOL for making lemonade out of lemons. The course was challenging, safe and made for good racing. Who would have thought the wall was going to be the "easy" part of the course (due to tailwind!) That said, it was a bit of a joke with that much wind to have the groups so tight. I was just on the Iron Horse Website and it looks like they've got a different take. I mean does it really matter if you're 23 and putting out 400 W or 38 and putting out 400W? Ability, not age should define the cats. BTW - history aside, I think the 100% closed course with the wall is more fun/safer than the full Morgul. Might be a happy accident!

35+ 1-2 for the rest of this year should just ride with the 1-2 s and have results broken out for BRAt.
Having those groups would still be under max size...
Going to be some big push back from some sponsored 35+ teams though.

Not a single sponsor gets any real ROI from sponsoring a 35+ team and therefore has nothing to lose by having their members race in the seniors. Might actually pay off at Nationals to race with the seniors.

I don't think there should be any changes mid-season. But for next season, I'd like to see a serious look taken at eliminating three categories by: changing masters to 40-49, 50-59, and 60+; eliminating the masters 3 category, and cutting down to one masters 4 category (40+4). About the only road event I can think of where this would cause fields to fill up is Boulder Roubaix. It would be more of an issue for 'cross, though.

Also, I would allow combined fields at the PROMOTER'S DISCRETION so long as the results are split out for Cup purposes. So Men 3/4 or Men 4/5 or Men P123 would all be good, just publish it in your flyer.

This year the Gila made the mistake of introducing a Master's B field, which instead of adding registrants just resulted in smaller Master's A and Men's 3 fields.

Just for reference, here are the categories from a pretty big summer road race on the east coast: P12, 3, 4, 5, 40+, 50+, Women P123, Women 3/4.

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